


Tiny secrets

by Pearlislove



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Susan is Bill's mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 21:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11044305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearlislove/pseuds/Pearlislove
Summary: Bill Potts, The Doctor, Susan Foreman and an old PolaroidShoreditch, 24/8 - an old man on a bench





	Tiny secrets

The Doctor cradles the tiny baby in its pink and blue one piece closer to his chest, his finger brushing across a the baby's soft skin. It's caramel fudge colour stands in stark contrast to his bone white skin, and he tickle the tiny foot as it starts kicking in the air.   
  
The baby giggles joyfully, and The Doctor smiles an even bigger and happier smile.   
  
The woman beside him, dark haired and made out of milk chocolate, soon join in, a clear laughter like silver bells cutting through the crisp but not yet cold autumn air. There is excitement in her eyes and The Doctor can tell she is enjoying the moment, too.

 

"You're good with babies. Do you have any grandchildren?" She asks, once her laughter has finally died down, and smiles even bigger, even more.   
  
It's a beautiful smile, a thousand galaxies reflected in her eyes and ten thousand moments of bliss lifting her lips upwards, splitting her face in two and filling it with joy.  It makes The Doctor’s heart beat faster in his chest and make butterflies fly in around in his stomach, but it doesn't save him from the sadness stabbing at his back. "Once. A long time ago, when I was younger.” He manages to answer, his voice quivering and almost breaking, trying to keep a happy expression though all the happiness he once felt has been blown away.    
  
The dark woman beside him barely seems to notice the change in attitude, though, and nods absentmindedly, before starting to dig in her bag. "Can I take a photo of you and the baby? I understand it’s sort of weird, but it’d be like taking a photo of the baby and my granddad. He raised me but..." She pause, and The Doctor thinks that maybe, finally, she's realised who he is. But instead, she shrugs her shoulders and continue, and The Doctor’s heart sink lower. “He’s gone now. Though I bet if he was here he’d look like you.”   
  
She pulls up the Polaroid camera, holding it up and turning to look at him questioning. He nods, just slightly hesitant, and she snapp the photo before he can react, showing it to him once it's dry.   
  
He looks at it, and she chatters away in his ear, but he doesn't hear what she says. All he sees, is the old man and the baby sitting there on the bench.    
  
\----   
  
Bill looks at the faded and  polaroid in her hands. On the back is an inscription in loopy hand writing, reading ‘ Shoreditch 24/8 - old man in the park ’. Bill doesn’t care, though, because it is not her mother's hasty made notes of the setting relating to the photo that interest her, but the motive of it.   
  
An old man in a black hoodie with thick silver hair sticking up everywhere, sitting on a battered old park bench with chipped paint. He is cradling a tiny baby, an infant, in his arms, and there is a smile on his lips that doesn't quite reach his eyes. The baby has skin like melted caramel and glow against the pale of the man’s skin and his dark clothes.   
  
Bill has never asked The Doctor about it. She knows what it means, obviously, but has never dared to ask the question.

 

Doctor, why does this photo exist?

  
Doctor why did my mother take a photo if you and me on a bench in Shoreditch when I was a baby?   
  
She knows why it exists, knows her mother must have met him and took it, but she can’t help but wonder if it means something. If The Doctor, sitting on a worn out park bench with her own infant self resting in his arms, is some kind of message for the future her, telling her something he could never say.   
  
A secret, perhaps.   
  
"Bill, your tutor...uh...John Smith is here!" Moira's voice calls out from the hallways, and Bill quickly put the photo back in the box before she can see it.   
  
"Coming!" She responds cheerfully, putting the lid back on the box so there won't be a risk of anyone discovering it.    
  
She'd decided, if it was a secret, then it was going to stay that way.


End file.
